WATCH: Wildfires reduce part of SA's oldest wine farm and a four-star lodge to ashes

Wildfires tearing across Somerset West in the Western Cape have damaged one of the country's oldest and most prestigious wine farms.

Vergelegen CEO‚ Don Tooth‚ said 40% of the wine farm was burnt within a 12-hour period due to winds of more than 100km/h fanning the flames.

He said some of their vineyards burnt down. But almost two-thirds of the farm is a conservation area for fynbos rehabilitation and much of it was ravaged the fire which was still raging on Wednesday afternoon.

Cape Town fire and rescue services spokesman Theo Lane said 120 firefighters were being assisted by crews from Working on Fire and CapeNature. He said 22 vehicles‚ three helicopters and two fixed wing aircraft had been dispatched in an attempt to douse the inferno. They are largely concentrating on residential areas.

"Seven residential properties have been damaged to various degrees. And the Bezweni Lodge main building has been completely destroyed‚" Lane said.

The four-star lodge‚ described as a "haven of peace and tranquillity" had a thatched roof. It was situated in the Hottentots Holland Mountain Range at Sir Lowry's Pass Village.

Tooth said that much of the fynbos which has been burnt was still very young. "It's taken us about 12 years to get where we are in weeding out the alien vegetation. Obviously when a fire runs through it germinates alien seeds as well as Fynbos seeds and we have to go back in there and weed by hand to get rid of any alien vegetation that comes up again which is hugely labour intensive.

"In one or two areas it's welcomed but in other areas we would have liked another couple of years because fynbos does need fire to regenerate itself. We had our last big fire here in 2009 so we would have liked another in couple of years‚" Tooth said.

He added that the fire hadn't damaged any of the tourism infrastructure or houses and there was no need to evacuate Vergelegen‚ which was founded on February 1‚ 1700.

The farm‚ which originally belonged to Willem Adriaan van der Stel‚ governor of the Cape‚ is today owned by Anglo American. According to the farm's website‚ Van der Stel succeeded his father‚ Simon van der Stel‚ and claimed a "modest 30 000 hectare piece of land for himself just as his father had done in his time at Constantia".

"Six years after he started planning vines‚ Willem Adriaan had half a million vine stocks. He laid out orchards and orange groves‚ planted camphor and oak trees‚ and established 18 cattle stations with 1000 cattle and 18000 sheep. Willem Adriaan also built reservoirs and dug irrigation canals. He built himself a beautiful Cape Dutch homestead‚ added a corn mill and many other subsidiary buildings."

Strand resident‚ Lieze Nel‚ said the area was engulfed by a thick cloud of smoke as she drove in from Stellenbosch around 8.30 on Tuesday evening.

"It looked like the end of the world‚" said Nel.

"It was pitch black as we drove through the smoke. You couldn't see anything‚ but once we made it closer to the beachfront‚ you could see there was in fact still light." - TMG Digital/The Times